Mens Road Race.

After the tour de france (TDF) i'm pumped for this event.

During the telecast of the time trial stages in the TDF, the commentator kept going on about how good a chance Rogers would be in the Olympics road race. But yet when i looked at the sportstab and centrebet prices he is listed at $67.

I'm going to put a lazy $10 on him and see what happens (They were talking like he would be one of the favs. for the event ).

Haven't paid any attention to what the course is - but I'd expect it to be pretty flat (compared to any of the mountain stages in the Tour) so it's more than likely to come down to a sprint finish... which means McEwen, O'Grady, Hushovd, Boonen etc. are likely to be the major candidates.

Rogers is in with a shout. Wouldn't count out good breakaway riders like Bettini, Arvesen, Voigt, Axel Merckx either, even though it's a flat stage. On a one-off, these riders are going to give it a serious go, much more than in the Tour where they have to save their energy for the big mountains. Even on a flat stage, if say three Italians are allowed to go with Bettini, that's big trouble for the peloton.

A follower of the schools of Machiavelli, Bentham, Locke, Hobbes, Sutcliffe, Bradman, Lindwall, Miller, Hassett and Benaud
Member of ESAS, JMAS, DMAS, FRAS and RTDAS

when you're winning, you have friendsscores and dozens, real friendswhen you're winning, never lonelywhen you keep winning

Right, that Licavitos is 6 per cent and 1.5 km, and you're going up 13 times? Perfect for breakaways. Long enough to get a decent lead without burning all your energy. It's not a case of allowing him to get away, it's a case of going as hard as you can to prevent his lead getting too big. Air resistance isn't that important on a mountainside, either, so the peloton don't have that much of an advantage. 159km is a laugh for an olympic course though...should be at least 190 IMO, this favours the sprinters too much.

Btw, Lance Armstrong won a similar course in the world champs eleven years ago. He was a bit different strength-wise and mind-wise, though.

Serginho broke too early and Bettini wrapped him up. Marcx rode really well for his bronze, tore away from the pack and just stormed home. It was always going to be Bettini after he broke away on the climb, Serginho just doesn't have the experience or the class.

Craig, whats the deal with Tyler Hamilton? After the first test came in positive the second one also was positive but was unuseable cause it was frozen :s, he has also tested positive in a test from the tour of Spain but gets to keep his gold medal....was to blood dopeing btw..